The present invention relates to a plastics material modular pallet.
As is known, in the industrial shipment field are broadly used pallets for bearing and/or supporting any types of loads such as parts of apparatus, half-finished products, cisterns or tanks and so on.
Prior pallets are conventionally made of wood, steel or plastics materials. In particular, plastics materials are very advantageous owing to their small weight, strength and atmospheric agent resistance properties and are quickly replacing the other mentioned materials. This replacement relates specifically the pallets provided for supporting and/or bearing cisterns or tanks for carrying different types of liquids, up to a specific gravity of about 1.9 Kg/dm3.
While the above mentioned prior pallets solve the indicated technical problem, they are affected by the following disadvantages.
The wood or steel pallets are affected by a lot of drawbacks directly deriving from the material forming said pallets. In particular, wood pallets can be easily spoiled under the effect of atmospheric agents, and their mechanical strength characteristics are susceptible to greatly change in the time; the steel pallets, on the other hand, have a greater strength, which, however, is related to a significative weight increase; moreover, steel pallets must be properly protected against corrosion.
Plastics material pallets would allow to overcome the main problems of the other material pallets and, since plastics material pallets can be constructed with a modular construction, they would be very practical in use.
However, prior plastics material pallets are also affected by two types of drawbacks.
The first is the practical impossibility of changing the pallet strength depending on the load. In fact, for example, the cisterns supported by said pallets can be filled with greatly different specific gravity liquids: i.e. specific gravity values from about 1 Kg/dm3 for water to about 1.4 Kg/dm3 for food liquids and up to about 1.9 Kg/dm3 for special liquids used in some industrial processes.
It should be apparent that, as the liquid changes, also the strength properties of the pallet would be changed, thereby it would be necessary to use pallets of different size, depending on the load to be supported, or it would be required to use pallets designed for supporting, the load capability of the cistern being the same, the liquid having the greatest specific gravity.
In both cases, the pallet cost would greatly increase.
The further drawback of prior plastics material pallets for supporting cisterns is the corrosion in the time of the collecting tray thereof. The latter, which is conventionally arranged under the faucet of the cistern, is provided for collecting possible liquid leakages occurring as the stored liquid is poured, which leakages, in the case of the noxious liquid, would be very dangerous.
In particular, since the collecting tray is made of steel, it is much or more corroded in the time: thus, it is necessary to replace the overall pallet in order to allow an efficient collection, since the tray cannot be separated from the pallet. Thus, in this case too, the involved cost for the user would inevitably increase.
Accordingly, the aim of the present invention is to overcome the above disclosed drawbacks of the prior art.
To achieve the above aim, the invention provides a plastics material modular pallet, very practical in operation, efficient, constructionally simple, which can be fitted to any load requirements and used without any maintenance requirements.
Briefly, according to the invention, the above aim is achieved by a plastic material modular pallet comprising a plurality of supporting elements, operatively coupled to one another by at least a further element cross arranged with respect to said supporting element, said cross arranged element including a plurality of recesses for engaging therein one or more structural reinforcement elements.
The plastics material modular pallet according to the invention is characterized by the characteristics disclosed in claim 1.
The plastics material modular pallet according to the invention provides the following advantages.
Each pallet according to the invention can be fitted to a lot of different load requirements, by quick and simple fitting operations, which can be easily carried out by the pallet user.
A further advantage is that the subject pallet is practically free of any maintenance requirements, and, moreover, it would not be necessary to replace the pallets because of the disclosed tray corrosion problems, with a self-evident reduction of the operation cost.
Finally, the individual components of the pallet according to the invention can be easily made by known making method on conventional existing pallet making lines, with very small modifications to the existing systems. Thus, the pallet making cost can be compared to that of a prior pallet, whereas the operating cost is much smaller.